Drought, fires take a toll on wildlife

She recently beefed up a female black bear that wandered into the lakeside village of Eagle Nest, just south of some of New Mexico's biggest wildfires of the season.

"She's a yearling and was starving to death. She was so weak she could no longer walk. She came in to us weighing 17 pounds and went out weighing about 85 pounds," Ramsey said after releasing her back near Eagle Nest.

Another bear released last week at 150 pounds arrived weighing just 25 pounds, she said.

In Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, the worst-hit states in the West, a combined 1.27 million acres have burned in 3,820 fires.

More than $1 billion in emergency firefighting money is in the congressional pipeline, said Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. Of that, $200 million would apply to habitat restoration.

The Arizona report on fire-displaced animals said many newborn elk and deer probably were killed in the fires. It also said the drought left "exceptionally low" numbers of elk calves and deer fawns.

Elk calving in New Mexico may also fall well below average, said Martin Frenzel, a spokesman for the state Game and Fish Department.

There were about 70,000 winter elk, which in a good year might be expected to give birth to about 30,000 more elk. If those young do not materialize, New Mexico's elk population could drop into the 60,000-range for the first time since the mid-1990s, Frenzel said.

Bob Ricklefs, ranching superintendent at Philmont Scout Ranch in northern New Mexico and chairman of the New Mexico Cattlegrowers Association wildlife committee, said National Weather Service rain gauges at Philmont show rainfall for the half-year at 29 percent of normal.

"I've never seen that, never, never, never," he said.

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U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: www.fws.gov; National Interagency Fire Center: www.nifc.gov